I'm sorry, but this Ron Paul is gonna destroy this party if they keep him in there. This is nuts on parade. The media loves this guy 'cause he's nuts on parade. They want the whole Republican Party to be identified with the kookiness of Ron Paul.

73 comments:

I disagree. Having him in the GOP debates works against the idea that the GOP is full of hawks and drug war proponents.I think he is a kook, but he also pushes other Republicans to defend their positions. If they can do that in a way that makes sense, it is to their benefit.

Hear me now and believe me later, the GOP straw poll has no consequence. Whoever wins will be crushed by Obama-Biden and media. The best for GOP is to walk away. Think about 2016. You have no chance. Use the time to develop: vision, deliverables, diversity, and leadership.

The straw poll winner will be Paul, but he is useless. The 2nd place finish will be Bachman, but she is living in the last century. The 3rd place will be T-Paw, but he will not be in the VP slot.

The ticket will be Romney or Perry at the top. They will lose all states, all districts, etc. The worse electoral college disaster. There will be so many PHD theses on the GOP loss, that will be impossible to keep track.

Supposedly, the Paulians have descended en masse and will do what they always do.

The Blonde was asking me about IA the other day and I told her nobody had ever cared about it until Jimmy Carter upset whomever the front runner was (how much David Rockefeller had to do with its newfound importance is up for grabs).

Paul is the Supreme Commander of the Tin Foil Wing of the Libertarians, so it would be a black eye for the Republicans.

Rush is right on this one. The MSM has succeeded in demonizing Sarah Palin, the Koch brothers and the Tea Party, and now they've fastened on the one-dimensional Ron Paul as a proxy for demonizing the whole Republican party.

Shame on the one-dimensional lefties who think they need only sneer the word 'Palin' or 'Koch' or 'TeaParty' to stand as a proxy for their exquisite reasoning of all political debates.

And this is why you voted for Obama and all that talk of Rush being the head of the Republican Party is crazy:

Politics isn't a game or a show (I never heard you call American Idol tiresome).

Ron Paul, when it comes to economics, is closer to reality than makes most people today comfortable, which is fine by me. Do I think he should get the nomination? No. can he be loony? Sure. But that hasn't disqualified anybody else - no matter what I say - so I think (if we're not going to do anything about crazy - you haven't apologized for voting for Obama have you?) then we should, at least, acknowledge those who are looking some of our problems squarely in the eye when others aren't.

I think conservatives, desperate to beat Obama in '12, really dislike Ron Paul because they see him as a sure loser if it actually came down to Paul vs. Obama. Despite what some people see as 'kookiness', Ron Paul would be the best thing that could happen to this country in that he could actually reverse the downhill slide, not just slow it as every other Republican candidate (except for Gary Johnson) would do.My fear is that someone like Romney or Pawlenty as President would just be another conservative embarrassment as George Bush was.As a libertarian-leaning conservative, I'm $#*$& tired of having to defend the big-government crony-capitalism of Republicans. I certainly don't have to do that with Paul.Also, there's some intellectual elitism on both sides when they dismiss Ron Paul as a 'kook'. Let's let the liberals think they hold the intellectual high ground. Then they'll have further to fall.

American Politico, will Obama drop that loon Biden and who would he replace him with? Who will challenge Obama in the democrat primaries. Where have all the peace protester gone, long time........... Will Obama pull a LBJ and not run for the good of his party.

Crack emcee wrote:Ron Paul, when it comes to economics, is closer to reality than makes most people today

paul's only POTENTIAL saving grace is his economic ideas, which may not be as insane as they sound. For example, the idea of going to a gold standard is not completely insane since we were on a gold standard at some point.

BUT think about when Bush tried to get us to reform SS, and the amount of push back he got from that. Now imagine if President Paul decides to go to the gold standard or absolve the fed. The president is a lone voice who has to build coalitions,amongst both parties. Paul's ideas would be extreme even to most republicans. So even if you say he has good ideas, what are the odds that any of those ideas could ever see fruition? If they could never see the light of day, then in fact they're not good ideas. Why doesn't Ron descend into the real world and argue things that actually apply to our current sitiation.

And on top of that we'd then have to put up with a Ron Paul fortress America, nuclear arms race in the middle east isolationism foreign policy? No thanks.Paul and all his supporters need to go the way of the dodo. It's embarrassing that this guy continues to get elected, let alone that he's running for president every year.

Ron Paul has the one thing that no other candidate has and that's genuine honesty. You don't have to ask yourself if he believes what he's saying, or is he just saying what people want to hear. If you want to define "nuts" as absolute honesty, and integrity then he fits the bill. What scares the MSM most about him can best be illustrated by a scene from Blazing Saddles.When the black sheriff is on the verge of being lynched he points his own gun to his head and says "nobody move or the N word gets it" At which time the mob replies with a horrified gasp "I think he means it" So when Ron Paul says he will remove troops from Iraq, and Afghanistan the MSM gasp's and says "I think he means it"

Iif you say he has good ideas, what are the odds that any of those ideas could ever see fruition?

Now you're talking kooky - no one's suggesting he has a chance or should get one - I said the man was "crazy" - but crazy hasn't eliminated anyone else, so what's everybody bitching about when it comes to Paul? I'll tell you:

He's conservative. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less.

Rosie "fire can't melt steel" O'Donnell can be a star on the Oprah Winfrey Network and nobody asks how that happens in a supposedly educated nation (even through the woman who inspired the world's biggest book club and brought us our current political disaster - something NO ONE seems to want to talk about) but let a Ron Paul or Michele Bachmann come along and, all of a sudden, crazy's a major issue.

I swear, the hypocrisy of some people is absolutely galling - especially A) how they try to pretend no one can/should see it, and B) that there's so little follow-up on it.

Why was it O.K. during the FOX News debate but isn't O.K. in the rest of our lives? Where's the follow-up? How can Instapundit snidely get away with calling people who voted for Obama "rubes" but never mentions Ann? How many times can either of them be wrong about something with no one calling them on it?

Will the people of this country ever decide to drift to people who are actually correct in their views, or will politics/journalism/blogging always stay the equivalent of jr. high school cliquishness with no penalties for steering people wrong?

Here's why a lot of folks like me are for Ron Paul, despite disagreeing with him on some things:

He's the only one I really believe is for limited government and will fight for it.

He's the only one I really believe will fight to cut spending.

It's hard for me to see Paul making worse decisions on foreign policy than President Obama has made; and he'd make some better ones for certain. I say this as one who disagrees with his "pull back from the world" approach.

And, yes, I realize he's not likely to win the nomination; and he's not likely to win the election if nominated. So what?

Romney is a disaster nearly as bad as McCain. How many times has he flip-flopped on abortion? He really believed it the last time he saw the light; now we're to believe he really, really believes it? And it's not just that one issue; if he can be so glib and cavalier on something with the moral stakes so high, what else can he flip-flop on? Almost anything I think.

And he's going to repeal Obamacare? Really? Who buys his argument that the federal mandate is just terrible, yet a state mandate is just wonderful?

A President Romney comes in and does what past establishment Republicans have done: do what it takes (cut a little, tax a little, be the meany) to make big government work. He'll hold things, make things work better for awhile, till the liberals can come back in and resume their agenda.

Conservatives who think, oh, we'll back the wrong guy (and then convince ourselves he was never really wrong anyway), because we'll win and then it'll all be better--or it won't be worse--are like the men of Gondor who keep trying to grab the ring from Frodo. The Ring will lead us to victory over Mordor! No; the Ring will lead itself to victory over you.

There are two parties, that do not correspond to the two official parties: the party of government, and those who know that either government must be under your boot, or you will be under its.

Quite a lot of the GOP is made up of folks who are either intentionally part of the party of government; or else they are collaborators. Like Saruman, they do not consider it possible to stop Mordor.

So Dust Bunny,How would you say those practical ideas that normal people can accept are working out for us?

Hard to say since the politicians avoid the practical ideas and float pipe dreams and fairy tales instead.

If we were practical, we would have already trimmed the welfare entitlement programs by 20%. Trim Social Security by reducing benefits, raising the age and NOT covering people who have never paid into the system (illegal aliens and welfare recipients).Reduce military by the same amount by closing unnecessary bases. Eliminated government agencies and programs by the 20% or more. Reformed the tax code to make EVERYONE pay something. And so on.

They won't do it because they don't have the balls to make the hard decisions.

The impractical part of a Ron Paul presidency is that nothing would be getting done because in order to get bills passed you need to have to cooperation of your own party as well as the opposition. Stalemate.

Don Quixote is a well meaning character. I don't want him for President.

It's easy to find issues with which you disagree with Ron Paul about, because he puts them all right out front.The other candidates cloak their views in innuendo hoping to offend no one. You can't vote for him because he holds a view that offends you. But you can vote for someone who holds a view that offends you as long as they keep it on the DL.

A statesman needs a psychic reservoir of 'dishonesty'-- the job is not to 'tell truth to power' or some crap like that; anybody who can't keep a few ideas to themselves is self-disqualified from high office.

I'm enough of a deficit hawk that I can scare a few of the deficit hawks I argue with (in person at least; maybe not here). I often read "The American Conservative" and "American Spectator" with pleasure.

That said, I am enough of a Hamiltonian that I can not seduced by the Paulite or Norquist visions of a government small enough to sink in a bathtub.

Please, Tea Partiers, remember to take a look at Vlad Putin barechested on horseback and remember that, end the wars as we should, shrink entitlements, shrink the Gerald R. Ford carrier program, close some bases in Germany, and make people work till 70-- you *still* have to have someone cool enough to deal with all the hardass Machiavels out there in this world.

If we want to have Obama for another 4 years (God forbid!!!) then make Ron Paul the candidate.

We are sooooooo screwed.

Paul is such a harmful candidate despite his so called "conservativeness" that I would vote for Obama in a heartbeat rather than letting that guy get within a hundred yards of the white house. And i cant stand obama. Conservatives need to shun Paul and his followers. The only thing worse than a Paul presidency, would be a kucinich presidency, and I'm not even sure if I wouldn't vote for kucinich over Paul. At least with kucinich, you could at least blame the insanity on liberal ideas. I don't want Paul to be the standard bearer for conservativism, because if he is, then conservatives as a party will be in the wilderness for a hundred years.You might as well change the name of the party to the Whigs, as the effect would be the same.

If we want to have Obama for another 4 years (God forbid!!!) then make Ron Paul the candidate.

We are sooooooo screwed.

Paul is such a harmful candidate despite his so called "conservativeness" that I would vote for Obama in a heartbeat rather than letting that guy get within a hundred yards of the white house.

I can't understand how either of you (DBQ?) could even remotely entertain the idea he's anywhere close to being a candidate. Just because some of us acknowledge he's got a few on-the-ball ideas doesn't mean anybody's taking him seriously. As someone said earlier, I like him around to keep the others honest.

Indeed. The buzz over Ron Paul is almost as tiresome as the buzz over the Dali-Obama was two and a half years ago. And, no doubt this hurts the Republican brand; Paul is nuts, but the fact it hurts the Republicans is an indictment against the double standards of the media and larger political culture. After all, these nuts on parade happened to elect the worst president since Buchanan, with an assist from the media and voters who really should have known better, had they only thought it through.

Who knew catharsis has externalities? We have the government we deserve.

More to the point, no one who voted for Obama has standing to complain about Ron Paul, as both are equally nuts, equally bad for America and, at the time of Obama's election in '08, equally qualified for office.

It's a question of judgement.

And no, it wasn't a hard call, if only one could, or would, think it through.

neobil,Ron Paul would be the best thing that could happen to this country in that he could actually reverse the downhill slide, not just slow it as every other Republican candidate (except for Gary Johnson) would do.

Ron Paul is my Congressman and his constant stroking by the MSM and Libertarians is tiresome. He is a bad frontman for fiscal responsibility and as a consequence is part of the problem. Citizens of Galveston, TX are being forced to gorge on piles of Federal loot in the name of hurricane recovery, including the rebuilding of public housing that we neither need nor want. HUD has cut side deals with advocacy groups and the voice of the citizenry is rejected. Where is Congressman Paul on this? Nowhere to be found. Unresponsive to direct queries from his constituents. He is part of the problem, folks. Try to get your minds around that.

Ron Paul is like Palin or Jesse Jackson. Says some good things now and then amidst the loopiness. Has a Cult of Paulista adoration like Palin and Jesse developed Cults. (not to mention Obama) Not as good getting rich off self-promotion of his "brand" as those other 3.

In some ways, Paul and the Paulistas are good for the Party. (Jesse was good for 'energizing' people who wanted preferences and entitlements to be enthusiastic Dems - so he was good for the Party, too)

Tim said...More to the point, no one who voted for Obama has standing to complain about Ron Paul, as both are equally nuts, equally bad for America and, at the time of Obama's election in '08, equally qualified for office.

=====================Who the fuck are you Tim, to say who has "standing" to criticize pols - based on what you think are the correct votes vs. incorrect votes?

Politics sometimes comes down to two awful candidates, Obama-McCain, Reid-Angle and voters have to choose the lesser of two evils. Nor is the defense "as a Nevadan I didn't vote/cast a write-in for Mickey Mouse" - a basis to assert any moral purity.

Paulites are a dedicated bunch and that serves Paul well in the Iowa straw poll. As the stage grows its less helpful and eventually a liability. (I'm still recalling all of the avalanche comments in in '08 when any political blog mentioned Paul.) As an example take the Ron Paul logo. WTF?

On the positive side its good to see the rise of libertarian ideas. They provide a nodal point for those on the left and right to ?agree.

I agree with Lucius re: Gary Johnson. And unlike Paul he has real executive experience. Haven't we learned yet that executive experience is key. Unfortunately for Johnson, being Governor of NM is not a real attention grabber and when pundits suggests he's a "sleeper" many think they're speaking literally (based on his looks.)

I'm sorry, but this Ron Paul is gonna destroy this party if they keep him in there. This is nuts on parade. The media loves this guy 'cause he's nuts on parade. They want the whole Republican Party to be identified with the kookiness of Ron Paul.

Ron Paul is NOT conservative. Go write that on the blackboard 100 times.

He is and always (at least back to the 80's when I first became aware of him) a libertarian or as I prefer, a liberal (see Hayek or Freidman). At that time he was actually a Libertarian and candidate for prez on the Libertarian party ticket.

It is a slander on him to call him a conservative.

Libertarians hove some things in common with conservatives. They have just about as many things in common with progressives, too.

It is that Paul is NOT a conservative that drives conservatives like Limbaugh and others nuts.

One of the things that I have noticed over the past 3-4 years is that many people who used to think of themselves as "conservative" are realizing that they are not conservative, they just had no other label. They are realizing that they are liberals (libertarian) and starting to act like it.

Conservatives and progressives both want to use govt to run your life. In different ways, but their ends are the same, control. Liberals (libertarians) want you to control your own life with minimal govt interference.

I am a huge Paulista going back to the 80's when I first discovered him.

I would not mind seeing him as prez but would prefer to see him as VP.

He would take the VP job seriously. He would preside over the Senate on a daily basis. Some say that the President of the Senate (ie VP) has no power and that seems to be the case. They said the same thing about the Senate Majority Leader position before LBJ volunteered to take it on.

LBJ knew that the ML had lots of very small, nickle & dime powers and perogatives. None of them amounted to much but by exercising them together in a targeted way, he became arguably the most powerful senator in our history.

The Senate President/VP has lost of little powers and privileges that could give him significant influence if he chose to use them.

The other thing I would like VP Paul to do is to be the Secretary of Hell No He could use his bully pulpit to throw sand in the gears of govt growth. He could be in charge of finding useless and duplicative programs, exposing them to public ridicule and getting rid of them.

Ron Paul has no chance. So why the buzz? I think Limbaugh is right about the media focus. In any case, Paul has a few good ideas among his wagon-loads of baggage. Having him around does force some issues to the forefront, and that's useful--but only to a point. With most of the other candidates already embracing limited government ideals (even if it is just rhetorically) his purpose is even more questionable.

In any case, the observation that some who called themselves conservatives are realizing that they are, in fact, libertarians (or, alternately, classical liberals) is certainly the trend at the moment. Is this reflected in the GOP presidential candidates? Not really. But then the Tea Party has only been around for a few years, and its devotees have been in office less than a year.

So the candidates available are better then in the past, if not perfect.

Crack Emcee wrote:Now you're talking kooky - no one's suggesting he has a chance or should get one - I said the man was "crazy" - but crazy hasn't eliminated anyone else, so what's everybody bitching about when it comes to Paul? I'll tell you:

He's conservative. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less.

Rosie "fire can't melt steel" O'Donnell can be a star on the Oprah Winfrey Network and nobody asks how that happens in a supposedly educated nation (even through the woman who inspired the world's biggest book club and brought us our current political disaster - something NO ONE seems to want to talk about) but let a Ron Paul or Michele Bachmann come along and, all of a sudden, crazy's a major issue.

well I'm going to both agree and disagree with you. First off Rosie o'donnell is a loon, as are most liberals (though Rosie is loony even by loonie standards). And yes, the MSM has largely let her and other loons get away with their insanity, because they follow the same playbook.But that's exactly why I don't like Paul. His craziness gets linked to conservatives all the time,and we have to answer for his nuttiness. Well, I'll call a spade a spade. The guys a nut, and conservatives should not suffer his foolishness willingly. If he has to get a voice on a republican debate, then serious conservatives should be treating his statements with derision, eye rolling, exasperated sighs, and even responses like the following:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfYJsQAhl0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

When he uttered his inanities about Iran and the Paulians started cheering, SA forum should have asked: "hey, who let code pink in here?" He deserves nothing but insults, and people should throw tomatoes at him for wasting their time with his insane drivel. And yes, he has no chance of winning. Yet, I'm tired of having him standing on stage getting applause lines from people at a republican convention saying Iran should get nukes. His nutjob act is a distraction from actual thought and debate on policies that will get Obama out of the white house and get the economy back on track. Instead he gets 12 questions and an hour of airtime, to come across the crazy family uncle who never takes his mess and starts in with how the govt is run by aliens who transmit their mind control through cocoa puffs at thanksgiving.

I heard Ron Paul say about five or six years ago that he was putting all his money in gold. I don't know what he started with but I guess by now he pretty much quadrupled it.

As far as his saying we ought to audit the fed and bring the troops home, that's just obvious. We've been in Afghanistan 10 years now (apparently the first decade of our very own 30 years war). Osama bin Laden is dead. Nearly all the 9-11 hijackers were Saudis anyway.

We should all the generals who think they finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

We should bring the troops home and reward them for their service by giving them jobs rebuilding American infrastructure, which as far as I can see is following down around our ears.

As far as his saying we ought to audit the fed and bring the troops home, that's just obvious. We've been in Afghanistan 10 years now (apparently the first decade of our very own 30 years war). Osama bin Laden is dead. Nearly all the 9-11 hijackers were Saudis anyway.

None of which is the reason why we're there.

Why do you people speak - or vote - if you don't/can't even understand/grasp the issues?

In 2008, Ron Paul supporters are motivated and enthusiastic. Rather than trying to woo some of those voters, the GOP decided to shame them and marginalize them. Great job!

Two months after the election, the Tea Party movement sprung. Ron Paul built the grassroots infrastructure for the Tea Party to happen. I would be willing bet that in the early days of the Tea Party there was a huge correlation between Paul supporters and the early Tea Party.

Now, because of the Tea Party the GOP HAS to take seriously some pretty kooky ideas.

Ron Paul won't win the nomination, and I couldn't ever see myself voting for him. But it will be interesting to see what the GOP does with his followers? Will they take the same---SHAAME!---approach again, like Rush wants? Or will they learn some sort of lesson from '08.

D.D driver wrote:In 2008, Ron Paul supporters are motivated and enthusiastic. Rather than trying to woo some of those voters, the GOP decided to shame them and marginalize them. Great job!

2008 took place prior to the election of Obama, and the recognition of what damage was yet to come, which every major republican candidate has already acknowledged. But don't you thin that Ron Paul supporters marginalized themselves? Rpn Paul just came out to the left of code pink on foreign policy issues. So on what basis should conservatives woo Paulians who are so diametrically opposed to common sense other than economically in the most basic sense where conservatives already agree. There is no conservative in the race who is saying we shouldn't cut govt. Yet if you want to be wooed, you in fact would have to bend on such issues as foreign policy.